CL-129 Nostalgia, Authenticity, and Heritage — Exploring the Global Path of Today’s Spirits

Once upon a time, supporting independent makers in food and drink was paramount for conscientious consumers. To these shoppers, a common goal was to avoid anything with a whiff of global corporate ownership. But today, the goal posts have shifted in a slightly different direction, with customers often focusing on aspects like seasonality, sustainability, and staying as close as possible to the source. 

This emphasis on hyper localism isn’t quite as one-dimensional as it seems, or so says writer and academic Dr. Anna Sulan Masing. In a story for Good Beer Hunting titled, “People, Place, and Produce — How Agriculture, Secondary Ingredients, and Trade Routes Define Spirits’ Identities,” Masing looks at the tangible and historical influences on spirits and explains how certain ideas of what a spirit is today can often leave out where it actually comes from. She encourages readers to look to our past to understand our future, and how time, space, and travel all inform the products we consume, regardless of how local we think they are. 

In this episode, we discuss the power and danger of wielding the idea of “authenticity,” and what the term even means in the first place. You’ll hear how it took years for her to piece together the threads of an idea to report this story, as well as the challenges—and surprises—she faced throughout her research. We’ll talk about how history and heritage informs innovation and how those ideas of authenticity can be an ever-evolving concept, shifting from one person to the next. Even if you don’t fancy yourself a beverage historian, none of us can escape the local or global systems that nourish us. So let’s explore them, head on, and as a collective group.